Re: New long-distance wireless broadband in Essex?

The minimum contract period is 12 months, after which time the contract will renew for a further 12 month period each year unless 30 days written notice is given prior to the annual renewal anniversary. The customer will be notified by electronic mail to their nominated email address 60 days prior to a contract anniversary.

What worries me is that even their highest package has a monthly limit of no more than 80GB. I can't find any details about the costs for excess usage, e.g. how much is it for each additional GB used?

Re: New long-distance wireless broadband in Essex?

Ask them, I think they're feeling their way on usage limits and you could negotiate. Their "old" package stated "unlimited usage of it's service by it's subscribers. However where [W20 Ltd/old name] detects the service is being compromised due to excessive demands being placed on it's infrastructure then it reserves the right to introduce usage limits". No evidence of such "excessive demands" to date. In practice I use it in addition to the ADSL landline for things where the higher speeds are useful. I surmise they wouldn't be rigid on the limits from their normal attitude (so wouldn't automatically disconnect or reduce speeds though they have the capacity to do so) BUT it all depends on how popular the service will be, and I've no idea on that or what the business demand will be. Their driver here is the extra capacity from their new fibre link (provided for this service expansion, and hopefully with room to spare).

From experience so far I'd be a bit nervous of relying just on fixed wi-fi other than as, or without, a backup, not just on the limits but more the risk of signal interference (which I do have for instance putting it out for several hours over last night) UNLESS you are in clear line of sight to the transmitter or a repeater station (which I'm not).

Re: New long-distance wireless broadband in Essex?

From experience so far I'd be a bit nervous of relying just on fixed wi-fi other than as, or without, a backup, not just on the limits but more the risk of signal interference (which I do have for instance putting it out for several hours over last night) UNLESS you are in clear line of sight to the transmitter or a repeater station (which I'm not).

Several hours of disrupted service is quite a long time (though it frequently happens on our landline with IDNet, too). Was there any announcements on this somewhere on their status pages? Planned maintenance works? I would expect a business class service to be more reliable.

Re: New long-distance wireless broadband in Essex?

You're right my current disruption might well be down to work around their transmitter in connection with the new service provision but there are no status pages. However that's the exception (this sort of upgrade is one event in six years and was also confidential for contractual reasons) and whilst I'm no expert and my apologies in advance as you probably know this already, I think the general issue is slightly different from fixed line broadband. And don't forget I'm on the resi not business package which has a 99% SLA.

As I understand it wi-fi uses a small unlicensed portion of the wireless band, and very low strength signals by law, so the signal can become blocked e.g. it once happened unexpectedly with some new security fencing around the roof of the the tower block which contains their secondary transmitter (from which I'm served), and I suppose could be whilst people are working around the transmitter (which could be other operators doing overnight maintenance). There are also only 4 broadcast channels.

I think the new service is served from a local water tower on the Dengie, where I suspect there is less competition. My signal crosses hilly north Chelmsford and there are other new operators in the area, so I suspect there is a greater risk of interference, as well as the trees coming into leaf. As I said earlier "usual" downtime is <1 hour per week and any issues tend to be overnight and addressed by 8am. But any signal issues (apart from at the transmitter and I know of only one example bar the recent expansion in their 6 years of operating) are likely to affect only a single connection (because of the "line of sight" issue) rather than generally, so I don't think could be addressed on status pages realistically even though the connection is monitored (DPA apart from anything else). The benefit of wireless is that if you have a good signal on installation, it will stay that way unless there is something like a new building or forest that gets in the way and they don't tend to spring up overnight, and then it'd more likely be a drop in signal strength which doesn't translate directly to a drop in speed. (For me the great advantage was to by-pass the flaky underground cables and regular DSLAM faults which plague the landline).

I also think but stand to be corrected, it's a mesh network so aerials act as repeaters which strengthens the signal (which you receive from more than one direction), unfortunately this doesn't work for me as the first customer in my area. Their tech guy Alex seems to be very highly regarded by local techies so you could probably get much more comfort from a discussion with him.

Re: New long-distance wireless broadband in Essex?

My existing fixed wireless service was transferred to their new FibreWiFi service on Thursday last week, and since then no further outages. However I can't be of much help on actual vs. projected speeds as I'm in a projected poor service area (very light green on the coverage map), and it shows: whilst upload is a consistent 3.5Mbps, download varies from 1.4Mbps up to 4.7Mbps (and stays at whichever level for several days), so it will become the ADSL (a steady 3.5Mbps download on a poor quality local loop with 49.5dB att.) backup.

Unfortunately my problem is that I'm now outside the new coverage area for the improved service, so what was my old minimum download speed has become the new maximum. That's life, I suppose, and the risk of paying a for service upfront rather than on subscription!

Re: New long-distance wireless broadband in Essex?

Unfortunately my problem is that I'm now outside the new coverage area for the improved service, so what was my old minimum download speed has become the new maximum. That's life, I suppose, and the risk of paying a for service upfront rather than on subscription!

Can't you go back to the old service? Also, didn't they do a site survey before installation and the sigup for the new contract? Your speeds are well below the advertised 25Mbps.

Re: New long-distance wireless broadband in Essex? *DELETED*

Re: New long-distance wireless broadband in Essex?

Yes they do a site survey, and have now increased the power level in my sector. Unfortunately the installation was in winter, and I think there is a huge tree (within 0.5 mile) obstructing the direct line to the transmitter which is the problem. For instance on the 4Mbps SDSL service I was contracted for, I was getting a combined figure up/down of near 13Mbps in early May, now its risen to just over 8 (4 each way). I think summer surveys are better for that reason, but if you're thinking of getting the service find out where the local transmitter is, and do a visual inspection for any nearby obstructions in the direct line e.g. tall buildings or trees, and obviously the higher the receiver than on a domestic building the better. Other physical factors such as weather conditions had no effect at all, even during the relatively "bad" recent winter, when the speeds were at some of their highest.

Touch wood no dropouts since they increased the power level, and apart from the less than 1 hour aggregate/week overnight, that was also the case during the winter period. In a village without its own exchange, flaky underground wiring for 2m+ and insufficient population for FTTC, I still think these are some of the best speeds and reliable service I'm going to get for the foreseeable future.

The new service would be a no-cost upgrade for me so I don't think I can justifiably complain, but obviously with new sign-ups you'd be assessed for the new service. I'm just a bit jealous (& too far from the transmitter for the max potential 50Mbps)!